In 2012, a young nurse from Ipswich came to Lismore to begin her monastic life at the Carmelite Monastery on Ballina Rd, Goonellabah. Sister Mary Magdalene met in the parlour and shared her story with Sara Browne.

I entered the Carmelite monastery here when I was 23 years old. Prior to this I lived in Brisbane until I was eight and in Ipswich until I was 18. I attended St Joseph’s Primary School and then St Mary’s Catholic College for my secondary schooling. I went straight into university from school, studying Applied Science, Exercise Physiology at the University of Queensland (St Lucia Campus).

I did that for a few months, but really felt I needed a small break after my schooling. I moved to the Gold Coast at 18 years of age to pursue my swimming as I was a competitive swimmer at the time. My whole life I had been training and I just wanted to concentrate on that for a little bit more during this break time. My coach, who was a Commonwealth Games gold medalist in the same stroke that I competed in (butterfly), was an incredible support and guided me in my training at the time.

My goal ever since I was young was to qualify for the Olympics. I competed at the Olympics trials in 2003, but I was still young, being about 15 at the time. With the Olympics and trials you have to compete against swimmers of all ages, so I did reasonably well considering how young I was.

My parents introduced me to swimming at a very young age because of my asthma. It was when I was about three years old that one of my lungs collapsed and I was rushed to the hospital and that is when they discovered I had asthma. The swimming helped enormously and when I was eight years old I became interested in competing. I loved it, I really loved it.

At the peak of my swimming career, I was doing 10 training sessions a week and up to eight kilometres per session. It was huge. I look back now and think how I was ever able to do all of that. I really wanted to get to the Olympics, that was my goal. Anyway, it’s really kind of funny that I ended up in a monastery. My goals sort of shifted.

I did have a few boyfriends throughout my teenage years, like many young people these days. I always thought I was going to get married and have seven children, like my Mum, but God had other plans. When I took the break from university to train, that was the most intense period for my swimming. I was really concentrating on that. Towards the end of those 18 months, through a special grace of God, I started to question, what is the meaning of life? Why have I been doing all this training, my whole life, for one race, and I could be sick on that day? I started putting things more into perspective. I really felt that God was calling me to something else, something more meaningful. This was the time of my reconversion.

I call it a reconversion because I was baptized and brought up Catholic my whole life. I have a beautiful family – my Mum and Dad – and I’m the eldest of seven - we went to Mass every Sunday, the faith was in our family. But then during high school, my faith wasn’t very strong. I put my swimming above my faith. During my time on the Gold Coast training, I was asking myself the big life questions: why am I here and what am I doing? What does God want me to do with my life and what is the purpose of my existence?

During that time, I felt a strong call to give up everything I have been striving for and to become a religious Sister. I wanted to give my whole life to God, but I didn’t know where or how. So I ended my swimming career and moved back home to Ipswich with my family and I studied nursing for three years. I became a registered nurse and I worked at the Wesley Hospital in Brisbane in palliative care and oncology. I loved it. It was a beautiful experience for me and very rewarding to be able to care for people in the last moments of their lives, especially for their families. It really brought home the reality of death. I believe that death is not the end, but only the beginning - that life is eternal. We live for a certain number of years, but our soul continues on. When I was present at the moment when people passed away, it really brought that home to me. Whatever this person has experienced in their life, up until this very moment, is going to determine how they will spend the rest of their life, and God-willing they get to Heaven. I loved nursing, but I was still discerning my vocation during this time and felt that there was something even greater that God had planned for me.

The Carmelites are a contemplative community which means that we are enclosed and our main charism is prayer. We are bound by what is called Papal Enclosure, so once we enter the monastery we stay within its walls unless we have a medical appointment or emergency or something we cannot do from in here. Other than that, we spend our days inside the monastery grounds.

It might be a little bit intimidating having the grille to separate us, but it’s an external sign of our internal reality. We have separated ourselves out of our own free will to offer our lives completely to God for the people of the world. Our prayers are for everyone out there. It sort of helps having the monastery enclosure because you’d know from your own experience and I know from my experience living out there, there’s a lot of distractions. You turn on the news and it’s all negative, all the bad things happening in the world…all the technology and movies and all of these sort of things that can make it easy to forget about God. Our enclosure facilitates our life of silence and solitude by limiting distractions and by creating the space that we need to direct all that we do towards God.

Initially I wanted to become a Missionary of Charity Sister. That was the only order I really knew at the time because Mother Teresa of Calcutta was a very well-known figure. Then I started looking into different orders and I really felt an affinity towards the contemplative life, more specifically, a life of prayer, silence, solitude and sacrifice for all God’s people. I came across the Carmelite Order and the writings of Saint Teresa and St John of the Cross – two saints of the Carmelite Order. They were talking about a life of prayer and union with God, and how we can detach ourselves from all that is not of God so that he can use us as instruments of His will. The more that we are detached from all the things that can become a hindrance or an obstacle to our union with God, the better He can use us and the more powerful our prayers become. Reading about all of these things just really touched my heart. I thought - that is exactly what I want. So, after a little searching, I found the monastery here in Goonellabah.

I contacted the Sisters and expressed my interest in the Carmelite contemplative vocation. The Sisters asked me if I would like to come and stay for a little while to see if this life may be where God is calling me. This is called a live-in experience and I did take some time off work to try the Carmelite way of life. As I was working during my time of discernment, I could only get three short periods off work to travel to the monastery for my live-in experiences.

Each time, as soon as I left the monastery to return home, I felt such a longing to come back. It’s really a beautiful life. It’s hard as well, but it’s just so beautiful. So when I experienced it, there was something in me that knew, that’s where God wants me.

If a young person is interested in joining us, and they seem suitable, they’re able to come in and stay for up to three months and experience the life of the Sisters. If they feel that this may be what God is calling them to do, they can begin the formal process of initial formation. Recently the Holy Father released a document called Vultum Dei Quaerere that specifies that all contemplative communities around the world must have an initial formation of 9 to 12 years. That was released in 2016. My formation was prior to this, so it was about five years for me from postulancy (first stage) to solemn profession (final stage).

I took a leap of faith when I entered Carmel. When I decided that yes – this is really where God wants me to be – I told all my family and I entered in January, 2012. My family were all practicing the faith, but it was still hard to leave them. They’re very supportive of me, I have a wonderful family. After the 10 years I’ve been in here I think it’s a little bit easier for them. They can visit me once a month, though because of the distance I usually only see them a few times a year. My parents are still in Ipswich and some family are in Brisbane, Bundaberg and Perth, so we are all spread out now and it’s kind of easier for Mum and Dad because it’s not just me who is away from home. My family haven’t been able to visit recently with the border closure, however, but we still talk on the phone.

Living in Carmel is a joy that is indescribable. It’s a joy that I can feel inside my heart and it comes along with a great peace and contentment. I feel that this is where God wants me to be and that I am fulfilling the purpose for which God created me. I really believe that if I am faithful to Him, he can use me to help other people come to know and love Him.

A lot of our time is spent in the Choir – a part of the church – in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, which is where we believe the true presence of our Lord is reposed. We come before Him and we pray for the many intentions that people ask us to pray for. We get many phone calls – can you pray for my Mum who is sick or for my brother who is thinking of committing suicide – we have so many prayer intentions. You don’t have to be Catholic to ask for our prayers, we have many people from different faith backgrounds asking us to pray for them. We take these intentions and bring them to God, and we ask him to do something to help these people. It’s through our faith that we believe God is intervening.

We don’t always get to see the results of our prayers, but sometimes we are very blessed, we get people calling up and saying thank you so much, my father is better now...we get those beautiful affirmations that our prayers are actually making a difference in people’s lives. That keeps us going. It’s a real faith. It’s mysterious and we’ll only come to fully understand when we die and we see our Lord face to face. I always feel there’s so many people out there in despair, especially young people who are thinking about suicide or you are depressed or anxious. I just say, use me Lord, even if I have to go through tremendous struggles and sacrifices, if it will save one soul from committing suicide or from going through particular struggles, it is all worth it. I believe that these prayers and sacrifices are always answered, if it is for the good of that soul. That’s how we fulfil our mission in life as a contemplative community, through our prayers for people and a life of sacrifice.

We follow a horarium – a schedule. We wake up at 5.10am in the morning and we go to the Choir for prayer. We have a book called the Divine Office which has standard prayers in it that the Catholic Church around the whole world uses. Whether you’re here or in Rome or Africa – it’s a standard book in three or four volumes. It is basically divided up to follow the liturgical year and each day there are seven times in which we come together as a community to pray this prayer. The day begins with the first of these prayers from the Divine Office, then we have an hour of silent mental prayer, then Mass.

Following this we have breakfast and a period of work time. From 8.30am to 11.50am the Sisters are occupied in different types of work. Some will be making candles, scapulars or rosaries, distributing altar breads to different parishes. Some Sisters will be gardening, sewing, cooking or cleaning for the community. The only dietary restriction is that the Carmelite Rule does not permit us to eat meat unless we have a real need for it, a sickness, low in iron etc. This is a form of voluntary sacrifice that facilitates our poverty and asceticism. Then we return to the Choir and pray the Rosary and the Divine Office and then process to the refectory for lunch. Lunch is in silence as we listen to one of the Sisters read from scripture or something pertaining to our life like Carmelite spirituality.

After that we have an hour of recreation where we can talk freely with one another. Most of our day is in silence but there are two periods of the day – after lunch and dinner – that we can talk together. It’s really a very balanced life of silence, solitude and community living. Following this we have two hours in our rooms in solitude. This time is spent in study, spiritual reading, and resting. After that we go back to the Choir at 4.15pm for another hour of silent prayer and Vespers (prayer of the Divine Office). About 5.45pm to 6.55pm we have another work period and we come together for supper and recreation after that. It is then time for Compline and Matins (night prayer) and we retire for the day by 11pm. That’s a general overview of our life, there’s more detail, but that gives you an overall idea of our day-to-day schedule.

The Carmelite Monastery in Goonellabah was founded in 1966

There is currently fourteen Sisters living here and we have a few young women enquiring. Due to the lockdown they are unable to visit us at the moment as they live in Sydney. The youngest Sister in the community is 28 and the oldest is 85, so we have a wide range of ages. I am the third youngest at 33 years old.

I guess some of the hard things about our life are sacrificing being with our family. Some days I wonder what they’re doing, and how I’d love to be with them, especially when my siblings were getting married, for instance. Like any vocation, there’s difficult moments in the religious life. Married life is not easy…and parenting. Whatever vocation you’re called to, there’s always hardships we have to face. In our community we each have to learn how to live in love with one another, respecting each other’s differences. We only grow in virtue when we’re tried in that particular virtue. We only become more humble when we’re humiliated. We only become stronger in our faith when it is tested. We grow stronger in our love for one another when it’s hard to love or sacrifice something for another person. At the end of the day, we can all say that we really love each other in here. We’re like a family. I would say the good far outweighs the hard sacrifices.

That’s what I’ve found in this life – it gives us the opportunity to grow in love for God and our neighbour. Despite being enclosed, I feel a tremendous love for the people of the world. I feel a closeness to my family even though I’m far away from them. It’s on a mysterious level, a faith level. Despite the hardship, there’s a beauty beyond comprehension. I believe that God allows suffering and trials to bring about a greater good. That good might not be so obvious to us now. We don’t always hear about the good things that happen. There is an incredible power and value in suffering. And if it’s united to God, it has the ability to transform people’s lives. It has the power to transform our world. God never wills evil in the world, that is brought about by us and our sinfulness. It’s human nature, corrupt ideas, and giving into evil influences. God has given us free will and we can choose to use it for good or for evil. He always wants us to choose the good, the true and the beautiful.

It wasn’t until I came back strong in the faith that I could really say I know why I am here now. I am called to know, love and serve God in this earthly life, so that I may spend eternity with Him in Heaven. If I spend my life loving God and loving my neighbour, then that is a sure indicator that I am living my life according to His Divine Will. Our faith tells us that He is merciful and wants all people to go to Heaven, but He is also just, and if we choose not to follow Him, then we will have to face the consequences in this life and the next. God is so merciful that even up until the last moments of our lives, He wants us to turn back to him and He gives us the graces to do so if we are open to them. I believe that God loved us into existence and no matter what faith or background you have – you are here for a reason and a purpose.

I think there are truths in all religions, however, I believe that the fullness of truth lies within the Catholic Church. I see other Christians with a great knowledge of scripture. I see Muslims with a fidelity to prayer, even in airports, making the time for God. You can find all these beautiful things in different faiths. God dwells within all of us. We have to enter into ourselves to find Him. So that’s contemplative prayer, it’s a means to an end, and union with God is that end.